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Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)

Auteur de Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne

197+ oeuvres 1,548 utilisateurs 5 critiques 20 Favoris

A propos de l'auteur

Poet Algernon Charles Swinburne was born April 5, 1837 in Grosvenor Place, London, but spent most of his boyhood on the Isle of Wight, where both his parents and grandparents had homes. He was educated at Eton and Oxford University but was expelled from Oxford before he graduated. Although some of afficher plus his work had already appeared in periodicals, Atalanta in Calydon was the first poem to come out under his name and was received enthusiastically. "Laus Veneris" and Poems and Ballads, with their sexually charged passages, were attacked all the more violently as a result. Swinburne's meeting in 1867 with his long-time hero Mazzini, led to the more political Songs before Sunrise. In 1879, with Swinburne nearly dead from alcoholism and dissolution, his legal advisor Theodore Watts-Dunton took him in, and was successful in getting him to adopt a healthier style of life. Swinburne lived the rest of his days at Watts-Dunton's house outside London. He saw less and less of his old friends, but his growing deafness accounts for some of his decreased sociability. He died of influenza in 1909. (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins
Crédit image: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)

Œuvres de Algernon Charles Swinburne

Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (1946) 160 exemplaires
Poems (1905) 67 exemplaires
Selected Poems (1950) 60 exemplaires
Selections from A. C. Swinburne (1884) 57 exemplaires
Major Poems and Selected Prose (2004) 51 exemplaires
Poèmes et ballades (1873) 45 exemplaires
Songs Before Sunrise (1888) 34 exemplaires
Swinburne: The Penguin Poets (1961) 34 exemplaires
Atalanta in Calydon : a tragedy (1865) 31 exemplaires
Lesbia Brandon (1952) 31 exemplaires
Poems & Ballads (First Series) (1866) 26 exemplaires
Selected poetry and prose (1968) 24 exemplaires
William Blake : a critical essay (1906) 23 exemplaires
Tristram of Lyonesse (1917) 17 exemplaires
A Study of Shakespeare (1918) 16 exemplaires
Erechtheus: a tragedy (1876) 15 exemplaires
Laus Veneris (1866) 13 exemplaires
Poems and prose (1940) 12 exemplaires
Atalanta in Calydon and Erechtheus (1917) 12 exemplaires
The Springtide of Life (1918) 12 exemplaires
Choice of Verse (1973) 12 exemplaires
Poems and Ballads: Third Series (1889) 10 exemplaires
Astrophel and Other Poems (1894) 10 exemplaires
The Age of Shakespeare (1908) 10 exemplaires
Chastelard, a tragedy (2011) 9 exemplaires
Studies in song (1880) 8 exemplaires
A Century of Roundels (2011) 7 exemplaires
Swinburne, a selection (1960) 7 exemplaires
Selected verse (2015) 7 exemplaires
The Swinburne letters 6 exemplaires
Dolores (1916) 6 exemplaires
The Tale of Balen (2011) 6 exemplaires
Songs of Two Nations (1875) 5 exemplaires
BALLADS OF THE ENGLISH BORDER. (1925) 5 exemplaires
The Heptalogia (2012) 5 exemplaires
A Channel Passage and Other Poems (2012) 5 exemplaires
Algernon Charles Swinburne (2017) 4 exemplaires
Locrine: a tragedy (2008) 4 exemplaires
A Dark Month (2010) 4 exemplaires
The Duke Of Gandia (2004) 4 exemplaires
Essays and studies (1875) 4 exemplaires
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. (1899) 4 exemplaires
A study of Ben Jonson 4 exemplaires
Swinburne's Poems 4 exemplaires
Collected Poetical Works (1927) 4 exemplaires
The Posthumous Poems (1917) 3 exemplaires
Two Nations (2012) 3 exemplaires
Tragedies 3 exemplaires
Songs of the springtides (2008) 3 exemplaires
A study of Victor Hugo (1970) 3 exemplaires
The Best of Swinburne (1937) 3 exemplaires
Charles Dickens (1913) 3 exemplaires
The Sisters: A Tragedy (1892) 3 exemplaires
Shelley 2 exemplaires
Three Plays by Shakespeare (1909) 2 exemplaires
A note on Charlotte Brontë (1970) 2 exemplaires
Garden of Proserpine (1990) 2 exemplaires
POEMAS (Swinburne) 2 exemplaires
Anactoria and other lyrical poems (2009) 2 exemplaires
A Song of Italy 2 exemplaires
Shakespeare (1909) 2 exemplaires
Pasiphae. A Poem (1950) 2 exemplaires
Loves Cross Currents 1 exemplaire
Poems-Poesie (1990) 1 exemplaire
Dikter i urval 1 exemplaire
Hymn to Proserpine 1 exemplaire
Love's Cross-Currents 1 exemplaire
Swinburne 1 exemplaire
Poèmes choisis (1990) 1 exemplaire
Anactoria (1989) 1 exemplaire
Poetry 1 exemplaire
Swinburne's Dramas 1 exemplaire
Letters: 1877-82 v. 4 (1960) 1 exemplaire
Works Volume 3 (2015) 1 exemplaire
Miscellanies (2011) 1 exemplaire
[The palace of Pan] 1 exemplaire
The brothers 1 exemplaire
Letters: 1883-90 v. 5 (1962) 1 exemplaire
Letters: 1890-1909 v. 6 (1962) 1 exemplaire
Letters: 1875-77 v. 3 (1960) 1 exemplaire
Bothwell: a tragedy 1 exemplaire
Letters 1 exemplaire
Queen Yseult 1 exemplaire
The Queen Mother 1 exemplaire
Siena 1 exemplaire
Lyrical poems 1 exemplaire
Dead love 1 exemplaire

Oeuvres associées

The Illustrated Stratford Shakespeare (1589) — Contributeur, quelques éditions31,621 exemplaires
Notre-Dame de Paris (1910) — Appreciation, quelques éditions14,084 exemplaires
The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights (2001) — Contributeur, quelques éditions1,783 exemplaires
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (2000) — Contributeur — 1,258 exemplaires
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH [IN TWO VOLUMES] (1864 TAUCHNITZ HARDBACK FIRST EDITION THUS) (1861) — Introduction, quelques éditions726 exemplaires
English Poetry, Volume III: From Tennyson to Whitman (1909) — Contributeur — 610 exemplaires
A Pocket Book of Modern Verse (1954) — Contributeur, quelques éditions443 exemplaires
In the Nursery (1932) — Contributeur — 285 exemplaires
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th Edition, Volume 2 (1979) — Contributeur — 249 exemplaires
The Literary Cat (1977) — Contributeur — 241 exemplaires
The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse (1983) — Contributeur — 236 exemplaires
Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets [Norton Critical Edition] (1975) — Contributeur — 229 exemplaires
Poems Bewitched and Haunted (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) (2005) — Contributeur — 189 exemplaires
The Faber Book of Beasts (1997) — Contributeur — 140 exemplaires
The Standard Book of British and American Verse (1932) — Contributeur — 114 exemplaires
The Dedalus Book of Decadence (1990) — Contributeur — 97 exemplaires
Byron's Poetry and Prose [Norton Critical Edition] (2009) — Contributeur — 94 exemplaires
Storytelling and Other Poems (1949) — Contributeur — 90 exemplaires
Empire Writing: An Anthology of Colonial Literature 1870-1918 (1998) — Contributeur — 84 exemplaires
Ben Jonson's Plays and Masques [Norton Critical Edition, 1st ed.] (1979) — Contributeur — 73 exemplaires
A Book of Narrative Verse (1930) — Contributeur — 61 exemplaires
The Second Dedalus Book of Decadence the Black Feast (1992) — Contributeur — 49 exemplaires
The Works of Robert Herrick: The Hesperides and Noble Numbers. 2 Volumes (1891) — Introduction, quelques éditions35 exemplaires
Modern Arthurian Literature (1992) — Contributeur — 31 exemplaires
The Dedalus Book of Femmes Fatales (1992) — Contributeur — 24 exemplaires
The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Short Stories (2004) — Contributeur — 20 exemplaires
Thomas Middleton (2013) — Introduction, quelques éditions20 exemplaires
Masters of British Literature, Volume B (2007) — Contributeur — 16 exemplaires
Christmas classics: A treasury for Latter-Day Saints (1995) — Contributeur — 14 exemplaires
The Religion of Beauty: Selections from the Aesthetes (1950) — Contributeur — 11 exemplaires
Men and Women: The Poetry of Love (1970) — Contributeur — 8 exemplaires
Selected Ballads (2002) — Contributeur — 5 exemplaires
La poesía inglesa románticos y victorianos — Contributeur — 4 exemplaires
Poetry & prose : with Swinburne's poem and essays (1978) — Contributeur, quelques éditions3 exemplaires
The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists: Thomas Middleton (1887) — Introduction — 1 exemplaire

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Swinburne does Shelley and Blake. The world needs more ranting poetry.

"The wrongdoing is not ours, but ours the wrong,
Who hear too loud on earth and see too long
The grief that dies not with the groan that dies,
Till the strong bitterness of pity cries
Within us, that our anger should be strong."
 
Signalé
judeprufrock | Jul 4, 2023 |
As the lost white feverish limbs
Of the Lesbian Sappho, adrift
In foam where the sea-weed swims,
Swam loose for the seas to lift...


This is typical: it has Sappho, it has death, it has the sea. He was as much fixated on Sappho because she threw herself into the sea, as because in her he has a spokeswoman for himself and his explorations. Sappho's perfect for him, it's not just that he's a perv.

Swinburne writes endlessly about the sea. I tried his novels and remember a few pages on a drowning man, than which, I thought at the time, I never expect to find a more lifelike experience written down. But the sea's everywhere, and I bet he set himself the task to be like the sea: similar, yes, to itself, yesterday, but infinitely different, and who's bored by the sea? I don't know better sea descriptions.

Poems & Ballads was his first splash and highly notorious. He's more attached to French Decadents than the English Pre-Raphaelites – he was Baudelaire's champion in England. In brief he explores cruelty; first the cruel instincts in love, then outward to the cruelty of the world. His pagans attack Christianity as too optimistic a religion, and in that untrue – as well as being life-negative and anti-sensual.

'Faustine' is about a decadent Roman, a female Faust, a queen given over to evil and evil lusts, but magnificent. One of his gaudy poems, that can be quite funny:

You seem a thing that hinges hold,
A love-machine
With clockwork joints of supple gold –
No more, Faustine.


Is that steampunk?
More gaudy is 'Dolores', a tribute to “Our Lady of Pain”...

What tortures undreamt of, unheard of,
Unwritten, unknown?


Not any more. And published in Victorian England.
But onto more serious poetry. 'Hymn to Proserpine' has a note 'After the proclamation in Rome of the Christian faith'. It's a pagan's lament for things past and lost, and uses the sea again, with ocean-rhythms:

Will ye bridle the deep sea with reins, will ye chasten the high sea with rods?
Will ye take her to chain her with chains, who is older than all ye Gods?
All ye as a wind shall go by, as a fire ye shall pass and be past;
Ye are Gods, and behold, ye shall die, and the waves be upon you at last.


I've spent most time with 'Anactoria', which is Sappho in first person to her absconded lover. She too moves from cruelty towards Anactoria, in her abandonment, to a metaphysical statement. I think 'Anactoria' is a great poem. And once you get past the lesbian sadism, it culminates in Sappho's triumph as a poet. That may be an old claim – I shall not die. I'm a poet – but where is the claim made better?

Sappho is not the weary sort, weary of life and sensation like Faustine; she's healthy, she has far too much self for that. Yes, she swings between moods, and has her exhausted death-moods:

I would the sea had hidden us, the fire
(Wilt thou fear that, and fear not my desire?)
Severed the bones that bleach, the flesh that cleaves,
And let our sifted ashes drop like leaves.


But she's a presence, a personality, as the other women in this book aren't. She has a voice. Though at her lover's feet in one sentence, in the next she is above her, above her love. In her throes she can say, Last year when I loved Atthis, and this year/ When I love thee. You can see why Anactoria ran away. She has Aphrodite under thumb: Mine is she, very mine. Aphrodite offers her redress:

...and she bowed,
With all her subtle face laughing aloud,
Bowed down upon me, saying, 'Who doth thee wrong,
Sappho?'


She's nothing if not possessive:

That I could drink thy veins as wine, and eat
Thy breasts like honey! that from face to feet
Thy body were abolished and consumed
And in my flesh thy very flesh entombed!


Her own cruelty morphs into that of God (singular):

For who shall change with prayers or thanksgivings,
The mystery of the cruelty of things?


And she goes on with a vision of the universe's cruelty. With a God behind it:

Is not his incense bitterness, his meat
Murder? his hidden face and iron feet
Hath not man known, and felt them on their way
Threaten and trample all things and every day?


On behalf of the suffering she declares,

Him would I reach, him smite, him desecrate;
Pierce the cold lips of God with human breath
And mix his immortality with death.


The last third shifts to her victory over Anactoria, and over death, and over God in fact.

Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine,
Except these kisses of my lips on thine
Brand them with immortality; but me –
Men shall not see bright fire nor hear the sea...


and so on and so on, without they think of Sappho, or know her, for I Sappho shall be one with all these things. This is her conquest of God:

But, having made me, me he shall not slay...
Of me the high God hath not all his will.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
Jakujin | Mar 10, 2013 |
These characters are articulate, clever, but very cold indeed.
 
Signalé
markbstephenson | Jun 5, 2010 |
The collected works of a significant, if often (I think) underrated, Victorian poet. Definitely worth reading by lovers of poetry and good English.
 
Signalé
Fledgist | Jan 13, 2008 |

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Statistiques

Œuvres
197
Aussi par
40
Membres
1,548
Popularité
#16,637
Évaluation
½ 4.3
Critiques
5
ISBN
175
Langues
5
Favoris
20

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